Breath of Life
by Mertiya
Summary: Some months after Dusk to Dawn, Ajani finds an unexpected ally in the battle against Phyrexia.


**Breath of Life**

**A/N: **Companion piece to "Dusk to Dawn", taking place later and from Elspeth's POV. Enjoy! :)

White sunlight flashed on Ajani's axe as he lifted it high, sending droplets of dark ichor spattering across the battlefield. He howled a challenge and brought the weapon down, cleaving open the skull of a Phyrexian abomination. The heart of what had been Mirrodin seethed with putrescence, more horror than any one man could possibly fight, but, Ajani thought with grim satisfaction, every creature he slaughtered was one less who could someday kill or infect an innocent.

A lucky blow caught Ajani on the side of the head, and he stumbled backward with a grunt and a curse, then tripped and went over backwards, his axe spinning away from his hand. He groped for it blindly, but it had fallen somewhere to his left. The ghastly creature in front of him clicked its mandibles and prepared to strike; he held up an arm to ward it off, though one wound here might very well be the end.

White fire roared—up or down, Ajani couldn't tell—immolating the creature that had been about to attack him, and he was forced to shield his eye from the glare. His questing hand fell on his axe, almost accidentally, but it was still a moment or two before he was able to blink through the shifting pink-and-green afterimages to get a look at the figure left standing behind the downed Phyrexian. Tall for a human, but still short compared to him, she wore a battered suit of armor with a blackened hole in the center, and an eyeless mask with two horrifyingly familiar blue jewels in the center. A wave of despair crashed over him at the sight, but then she raised a hand, stripped the mask off and dropped it carelessly at her feet.

With a weary sigh, Elspeth leaned forward, grasped the hem of his—no, _her _cloak and dragged him back to his feet, pulling him up until she could reach his mouth and then throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him.

Elspeth could still feel the lingering chill of the Underworld in her bones, though it had been some time now since she'd managed to make her way out. The spell was not easy to break, despite sun on her skin and a high, arching blue sky overhead.

Ajani turned to her as they stumbled together out of the Blind Eternities, dragging her into a solid, crushing hug, then sagged to his knees in front of her and buried his face in her chest as well as he could.

"It might be more comfortable for you if I took the armor off," Elspeth said after a moment, trying for a smile.

Ajani sobbed, then laughed roughly. "Perhaps it might."

There wasn't much point in keeping it on any longer anyway; it wasn't really functional anymore, but she moved stiffly and slowly to take it off. "Where are we?" she asked. The path had felt familiar, but she had been concentrating on moving out of the dark void of the Eternities as quickly as possible.

Ajani smiled at her, though his blue eye was still misty with tears. "Naya," he said simply. "My home."

Elspeth looked around. Across this part of Alara that she had never set foot on, there was a tangle of high, old trees beneath the clear sky. The forest parted, here and there, to reveal immense stone ziggurats. There was stone beneath their feet, too: worn, huge blocks of an immense, half-crumbled structure.

As she dropped her armor to the ground, Ajani laid a slightly trembling hand on her shoulder. "You never took very good care of it," he chided.

"What?" she asked, briefly confused.

"Your armor. I had to wander across the planes to return it to you."

"Oh." She smiled, but still couldn't seem to breach the wall of cold the Underworld had left inside her bones. Not even the sun on her skin or the sight of the vast, untamed wilderness was enough, and she shivered, leaning into Ajani for support. That helped; there was nothing cold about Ajani, whose sides were still heaving with exertion from the battle, his rough fur matted with sweat.

It would have been surprising if Ajani had not noticed, as the sun was beating down heavy and warm. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Strange fear swept over her, and she could not banish it, but maybe she didn't need to. One could live and move and breathe with fear—not very comfortably, perhaps—but it didn't need to be crippling. She slid her hand into his large one. "I still feel the chill of that place in my bones," she said. "It's all grey, down there—there's no change, no growth."

"Ah," Ajani rumbled in his throat.

"There's just n-nothing." The last word caught in her throat, and she found that she was shivering harder. She couldn't keep talking about this, or she'd start to panic. Ajani bent his head and gave her a questioning nuzzle, and she leaned up on her tiptoes again and kissed him on the mouth once more. The rumble in his throat grew louder, and he shifted his weight, leaning forward, his free hand sliding around to her back, but still he was tense, moving tentatively, as if he were afraid to let himself go.

Elspeth found herself smirking slightly, and she yanked his head down and bit him on the ear. "I'm not that fragile, you know. If Heliod's spear couldn't—" she paused, suddenly aware of certain unintended implications in that statement.

Ajani laughed, close to her ear. "Ah," he said again, and his tail worked its way up her leg to brush at her groin through her clothes. Sparks of warmth chased their way up Elspeth's stomach, and she drew in her breath quickly.

Unlike the last time, they had all the time in the world, but she didn't want to be careful. She wanted to spend and waste this time freely, and she pushed herself eagerly against him, running her hands across his muscled back to feel his tangled fur and map the ridges of his scars. As he growled deep in his throat, he butted his head against hers, his hands wandering freely down her body as he tried to find some fastenings to her clothes. Elspeth was about to take pity on him, when he finally gave an irritated grunt, and, with a soft snick and a much louder rending of cloth, unsheathed his claws and tore her shirt and trousers right down the front.

"Much better," he said as he slid them off her shoulders, and she reached for his belt, which was thankfully less unyielding than her own clothing, though it still took her several tries to drag it off.

They collapsed together onto the flat stone of the half-ruined ziggurat. Ajani was already rubbing against her, his rough tongue exploring the nape of her neck as one of his hands quested clumsily up her inner thigh. She gasped and sighed as he reached between her legs, then hooked her legs behind his back—one foot teasing at the base of his tail, which drew a breathless growl from him—and dragged him forward. "Don't wait," she said.

He paused for a heartbeat, and then gave a long, shuddering sigh, his hands sliding up and around her back as he steadied her and thrust. Elspeth hissed through her teeth as pain and heat surged like twin lightning strikes up from between her legs to her chest. She fell backward onto her hands as Ajani pulled her up and off the ground, the noises he was making as he thrust into her like garbled sobs.

The fiery cone of pain inside her began to dull with repetition, and instead spit off little sparks of heat; Elspeth leaned forward, desperately nipping at his shoulder, and felt Ajani's muzzle scrape across her head, teeth meeting in her tangled hair. The tugging sensation also should have been painful, but was not—no pain, just feeling, just the beautiful lack of nothingness.

With his head so close to her ear, she could hear every little grunt and growl he made, and his noises drew a moan from her throat as well. She bucked her hips against his as well as she could from her awkward position, and he actually roared, the vibrations traveling down her head and into her spine.

The rhythm of their movements became wilder and more staccato as Ajani lost control, nearly dropping her several times. The noises spilling from his throat were a long, garbled string of liquid syllables that she finally recognized. He was calling her name. Elspeth's breath caught in her throat; desire and fear and grief crashed over her in an overwhelming mixture, but when the sudden tide ebbed, Ajani was still holding her and rocking inside her, still whimpering her name again and again into her hair, and she was calling his in answer.

The orgasm overtook her suddenly but not violently, less a blinding surge than a warm feeling of growth that began where she and Ajani were joined and spread outward to her belly, limbs, and head like a blossoming tree. She whispered his name again, letting it drop from her lips like a lazy benediction. He thrust into her now-boneless form a few more times and then climaxed as well, stiff and shuddering and strangely beautiful, strong and unwavering as an oak, before collapsing wearily on top of her.

Elspeth tangled her hands in his fur and hummed to herself, planting a kiss on his nose that he returned with a playful nuzzle and nip at her hair. "I'm afraid I've bruised you," he said eventually, in an amused rumble next to her neck that made her giggle and curl her toes.

"I will count those bruises happily tomorrow," she responded. "As long as you promise to be there to help." He didn't say anything, but held her closer and licked her forehead gently, and Elspeth curled against him with a satisfied sigh. "I'm so warm," she mumbled. She felt the flutter of cloth against her bare shoulders and blinked open her eyes to see that Ajani had drawn her cloak about them both. She smiled and felt herself drifting slowly toward a peaceful, dreamless sleep.


End file.
